Some parts of this post are relevant to Christian women to a certain extent but the core intention is to address primarily a male perspective.
We have talked about the benefit of masturbation as important to males’ sexual development from adolescence, defining it in terms of the 3-Ds. The subject of this post is to go somewhat outside that and simply encourage adolescent and older males to view masturbation as being a normal and healthy activity for teens and adults providing it is practiced according to the principles expounded elsewhere in this blog. In other words, masturbation by males from adolescence onwards can be considered generally beneficial to their personal self-esteem, self-identity and satisfaction with everyday life, primarily due to the pleasure associated with masturbation / orgasm and the relief from physical pressures created by the production and storage of semen, and from sexual tensions experienced daily as a result of normal social interaction.
When a Christian guy enters adolescence their body develops in the usual way and at some point their body will start producing and storing semen, when this occurs it is likely they will discover masturbation if they haven’t already been engaged in it (a small percentage of male and female children masturbate throughout childhood) since at a certain point of storage level their body is more sensitised to sexual stimuli. For example a guy may be washing himself in the shower and discover he is much more sensitive to touching his genitals than he would have had knowledge of previously, with the result that due to the extra pleasure he now experiences, he will keep touching until he has his first ejaculation. The knowledge that this action will result in the very pleasurable experience of orgasm will likely give him the desire to masturbate regularly from this point onwards.
The obvious challenges are for masturbation to be practiced at a healthy (non-addictive) level and in the context of maintaining sexual purity, which means singleness and celibacy, throughout adolescence and into adulthood until marriage is achieved. The key motivation for the use of pornography is to drive sinful sexual desires. These are generally casual sexual intercourse of various kinds or addiction to masturbation. Pornography carries a heavy spiritual burden such as sexual idolatry, and various negative outcomes both physical and spiritual are associated with sexual impurity (sin) and the aim is to discourage this for Christians. Addictive behaviour of any kind is usually driven by various kinds of disorders or problems in people’s lives simply because the negative consequences of being addicted for most people are sufficiently great as to discourage addictive behaviours or activities.
A Christian guy who has a balanced life understands that there are many pleasures in life to be enjoyed, and if he is single such as is the case in adolescence or in a part of his early adulthood prior to marriage, masturbation is a pleasurable activity, which if practiced in moderation and in a healthy way like other pleasurable activities such as those involving food or physical exercise, is constructive and blessing to his physical and spiritual wellbeing. It is important that young Christian guys are encouraged to masturbate because their sex drive creates a lot of pressures for them and being able to release these pressures and tensions will have major physical and spiritual blessings for them. The key difference from what we have said in the past is that benefits go outside the 3-Ds and simply come into the area of overall blessings to be received from masturbating.
As detailed in the past, it is up to each guy to determine how often he needs to masturbate and there will naturally be a range of possibilities in terms of frequency etc. Apart from previously addressing these in bands of low, medium or high frequency, we have no particular viewpoint on how often a Christian adolescent should masturbate. We note that most young men at adolescence are physically active and since such activity releases testosterone, they are likely to become horny during the school day and will probably need to masturbate more often when they have been physically active than might be the case at other times.